If you are trying to prove a point, arguing that in your top 15, you are going to include 3 goalkeepers, you are seriously handicapping yourself. Also, Mastro really did not play a huge role until after Armas got hurt. He was more of a young unknown during qualifying. And the legend of Greg Berhalter grows. He was a nice player, but that was it (and far worse according to Big Soccer during the 2003-2006 cycle).
I'd say that winning everything at home and getting results on the road (everywhere other than Mexico) is "breezing" through qualifying. That's playing all the matches "on paper" where we are a better team than everyone other than Mexico. Please note that the appearance of "breezing" is highly dependent on your schedule. In the Hex last time, Mexico started out "poorly", only because they had many of their difficult road matches early, including the traditional "randomly selected" February game in Ohio (seriously, CONCACAF, you are about as sneaky as the NCAA with its "blindly selected" made-for-TV drama match-ups in the NCAA basketball tournament). I don't expect the USA to "breeze" through qualifying this way because it's just too hard to play on the road in Central America (against CONCACAF refs . . . and host country soccer teams too). I also think it's fairly easy to see why CONCACAF qualification and World Cup Finals play don't correlate. Completely different games- different opponents (by style, skill and organization) and different facilities (high quality fields in cooler (other than 2002) climates vs. unlit, rock-strewn parking lots in humid Central America). JK, I hope, realizes this and prepares our team to grind out results "ugly" on the road in qualifying. IMO, 2-1 in Guatemala is equal to 8-0 in Andora or Luxembourg.
I'm not sure Wigan avoiding relegation is the right analogy, but you're point stands. Other confederations look at us and think how easy we've got it, which is partly true. We should and do qualify every 4 years. That said, I'd like to see some of the European squads put up with some of the venues our guys do. I don't think they'd be overly impressed with the behavior of fans at Saprissa. Or the field. Or the weather conditions. I can't imagine what they'd think of playing at El Salvador as some two bit ref who shouldn't be reffing u12 games allows players to punch, kick, gouge anyone they feel like. Uefa wouldn't put up with any of the backwater crap that happens over here. Our qualifying is more of a trial by fire. You know you can get through it, and the end is just on the other side of the broken glass and hot coals. Best to just get on with it and worry about the bs later. The worst part of our qualifying is that it doesn't really prepare us to play top competition. In Europe and conmebol, steel sharpens steel, readying the teams that move on for battle at the cup. Safe to say that isn't our reality save 2 games with Mexico in the hex.
'Twas T&T beating Honduras in the 9th game that saved our bacon and put us into the WC. What made the win all the more surprising was that Honduras was playing excellent soccer at the time--they had handed our asses to us in DC only a month previously--and T&T was a relative doormat. Then in the 10th game, we had qualified, but our regional buddies Mexico had not. And if Honduras had beaten Mexico in that final match, they'd have leapfrogged el Tri for the third qualifying spot (and at the time there was no half-spot for fourth-place qualifiers). But Mex held strong at home and beat Hondo (handily, IIRC), and scraped into the WC in 3d place, where they made it to the round of 16 before being defeated by superior opposition. Good for them!
It was the road games? I would have thought having Sven Goran Eriksson trying to suck the life out of any talent by banging his square pegs into round holes might have contributed a bit.
Yeah, in the hex the order of matches makes a big difference. Part of the reason our 2006 qualification was so straightforward is that the tricky away matches against Costa Rica and Guatemala were near the end of the campaign. Put those matches near the beginning and if we only earn one point it'll take most of the rest of the hex to make up the ground.
Who ever finishes 4th will take on the OFC top finisher most likely New Zealand who look like Canada on a bad day so CONCACAF should have 4 teams in the next world cup.
He sucked, but the results were still not far from what you'd expect in the Hex. The Quad was a completely different story for them- they went through only on goal differential behind Honduras and in front of Jamaica.
In fairness to SGE they didn't get any help from the refs in the hex match in Honduras...Costly batting the ball away from the defender with a blatant handball on his first goal and offside on his second.
I dismissed New Zealand all the way up to the 2010 World Cup, but no longer. Not only did they qualify through an interconfederational playoff, albeit against Bahrain, but they drew both Paraguay and Italy in the 2010 World Cup (and also drew Slovakia, for that matter). I don't follow New Zealand that closely, so I can't evaluate the friendly results since the 2010 World Cup in the light of the rosters for both teams, but New Zealand's record against CONCACAF since the 2010 World Cup is 1 win, 2 draws, 2 losses. That includes a loss to Mexico in the USA, and I find it highly likely that Mexico will qualify directly. CONCACAF may be narrowly favored in the CONCACAF-OFC playoff, but no more than narrowly. (However, New Zealand has been knocked out of OFC qualifying after horrific results before: 4-2 loss to Vanuatu in the 2004 OFC Nations Cup, and 2-1 loss to Tahiti in the 2008 OFC U-20 Championship. Should that happen again, then yes, any CONCACAF hex team should be heavily favored against Solomon Islands/Tahiti/whoever.)
New Zealands record against CONCACAF teams is a little flattering they beat an experimental Honduras squad by scoring a goal and just sitting back the rest of the game. They drew El Salvador because of a very shaky defense that if El Salvador doesn't fix they won't make it past Costa Rica. However in both games against Honduras and El Salvador New Zealand had virtually no possession, very little going forward and a lot of luck on defense. Whoever finishes 4th for CONCACAF will be considerably better then an experimental Honduras squad and El Salvador made changes to their defense in their second friendly which made the defense look better then the New Zealand game. I read some New Zealand articles after both friendlies and from what they wrote that is as good as New Zealnd has looked in a while which further makes me doubt New Zealands chances because like I said they looked like Canada when Canada can't generate much going forward.
All I know is, when a WC birth is on the line, possibly the only shot you'll have in your entire life... well, let's just say you play beyond your abilities. I'd expect as much from NZ if they played our 4th place team.
That is true but it will also be true for the CONCACAF 4th place team who will have the added benefit of having the more intimidating home game unless its Canada. New Zealand unlike Australia hasn't had meaningful games in Latin America yet. The first time I saw Australia go to Uruguay they didn't look as comfortable as they did the second go round.
Good post, but this way over states the gravity of the situation we would have been in had the T&T/Hond match not worked out. We qualified after match day 9 because we were 3 points in front of Honduras and 2 points ahead of Mexico when they were facing off in match day 10. Give Hond a point vs T&T and we still qualify in match day 9. Give them 3 points against T&T and we were still 2nd on goal differential, meaning all we had to do to guarantee qualifying was to match their performance on match day 10. We played the worst team in the group, Hond played in Azteca with Mexico needing a win to advance. I'd bet my mortgage in that scenario. There was no way we weren't going to the WC.....
Due to styles, Mexico has more trouble facing Honduras than the USA does. Also, USA has more trouble facing Costa Rica than Mexico does.
I disagree. The issue was about depth. Friedel/Keller is clearly a better GK duo than Howard/Guzan. And Meola is clearly better than Nick Rimando. The first 2 clearly were in our top 15, either an excellent international quality GK, and Meola had also earned his stripes, both domestically and internationally. Can maybe make a case Meola didn't belong in that list, but not Friedel and Keller. 2002 squad was better/deeper at GK, and it isn't even close. As for Mastroeni, fair point about him not being in the plans too much before Armas got hurt. However, he did start both games we won at the WC (Portugal and Mexico), and the Germany game. He started 3/5 games, and the games he didn't start, we looked far worse than the games he did start. Hard to say Pablo wasn't one of our top 15 players at the WC. As for the rest of the team. McBride, Mathis, Wolff, Moore, Stewart, Donovan, and Jones were all available forward options, with LD, DMB, Lewis, Jones, and Stewart all realistic winger options, and both Sanneh and Reyna played some RM as well. I'd argue the forward depth was certainly better than a current 23 would be, and certainly on the wing as well. Who are the backup wingers? Danny Williams and Joe Corona? CM, we have better depth now, but Reyna, O'Brien, and Mastroeni were magnificent. And I don't think Boca/Onyewu is that far above Pope/Berhalter. And Sanneh and Hejduk were both fantastic. When the current crop accomplishes something equivalent, then we'll talk. I'll accept increased depth (down to player 30-40), but until they actually do something, I can't see naming this squad as superior to that one for the 14-15 or so who will actually play the WC matches.
I won't argue the 1/2 in goal, though I find current Howard superior to Keller. And what if Keller doesn't suffer an 'injury.' Does Bruce have the balls to go to Freidel (clearly on better form at the time) and watch him stand on his head vs. SK? 3rd goalkeeper carries the balls to practice. It doesn't matter. One can argue that Rimundo's career, WC aside is as good as Meola's, despite never getting a tryout with the Jets. 2002 Mathis was a one trick pony (it was a hell of a trick). Jones and Stewart were moving to more of role players. You are arguing Pope/Berhalter, but it was Pope/Agoos until Agoos got hurt. I'd take current day Gooch and Boca (never thought I'd say that about Boca). Look, 2002 was magical but I'd seriously argue that this was a case of the sum being greater than the parts. To me this was Bruce catching lightning in a bottle and running with it. Last Saturday was the first time we've seen the US play to its talent level since the WC. It was exciting to watch. Not sure where this is going, but we are poised in 2014 to have talent at CL clubs scattered around Europe at prime ages, and not just JOB at Ajax.
If Honduras had beaten T&T the standings would have looked like this: CR 20 HON 17 (goal difference of at least +5) USA 16 (goal difference +3) MEX 14 (goal difference +4) We'd have needed a win at T&T to be sure of qualifying, since we could have been eliminated in a three-way tie on 17 points.
I remember watching Mexico-Honduras on Univision (then with Cantor and the late Norberto Loungo) - Mexico ran their opponents off the pitch. As with the 2010 qualifying campaign, the 2001 was when Javier Aguirre had to ride to the rescue of the El Tri that was in danger of being eliminated. His first match in charge was against the US at Azteca and he earned a fairly dull 1:0 win on Jared Borgetti's header over Carlos Llamosa off a free kick. It doesn't seem likely that Mexico will experience similar problems in this cycle as they did under Enrique Mesa in 2001 and SGE eight years later. And, if Mexico manages to put a drubbing on Honduras and Costa Rica, as it did in the last Gold Cup, it should theoretically work in the US favor.
Hell if one of the Canadian players hadn't skied his shot over the bar against El Tri when he was one on one with keeper the final match day would've pitted Mexico against Honduras, in Honduras, with the winner advancing to the Hex and a tie only helping Honduras. I love CONCACAF world cup qualifying because the format makes upsets more possible meaning you have to be on your game at all times.
Mexico has more trouble in the Quad (semis) of Concacaf than they do in the first round of the WC. And they got the most difficult group again this time, with CR and ES. Three teams from the last Hex in the same semi group. Concacaf needs to change their seeding for this. I can see ES grabbing that second spot. Mex is playing quite well and is the only team around that can win in CR, which I expect them to do for the third time in the row. If ES can some how hold out for a result at home against Mex, or get a slight edge head to head against CR, they can advance.